The three Fs ... What PM can do on the crucial issues

Finance

What's the problem? A decade of booming property prices and debt-fuelled consumer spending has come to an abrupt halt. Mortgages cost more and are harder to get. Repossessions are rising but first-time buyers are still finding it hard to get on the ladder

What can Brown do about it? Cross his fingers. His best hope is that the financial crisis clears up quickly and does not infect the 'real' UK economy too badly. The government, the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority have bailed out Northern Rock, tried to help the banks with special lending facilities and are reviewing City regulation, but none of this will save Brown if too many people start losing their homes and their jobs. In the US, hard-pressed voters are being helped with tax rebates, but the state of the UK's public finances means the Treasury can't afford to do much of that here

What the expert saysA strong banking industry is our best hope for getting through the credit crunch quickly, and ill-considered changes to regulation could make the situation worse. The credit crunch is an international problem and any tightening of the rules should be done on an international level, not just in the UK, otherwise we may be put at a competitive disadvantage.

Angela Knight, chief executive, the British Bankers' Association

Fuel

What's the problem? The global oil price has rocketed by 40 per cent so far this year, sending petrol prices and fuel bills into orbit. Consumers and businesses are now feeling the pinch, which threatens to exacerbate economic slowdown

What can Brown do about it?Try as he might, he is unlikely to persuade Middle Eastern and Latin American nations to produce more oil, which would push prices lower on world markets. Closer to home, he has two options. The most obvious is to abandon the 2p increase in fuel duty planned for October, scoring himself a hit with consumers and businesses. His other main option is a windfall tax on energy firms, using the money to increase winter fuel payments to the needy

What the expert saysA windfall tax on energy and oil firms would be counter-productive. What one needs is to reduce the price of fuel in the near term and the best way of doing that is a change of tax rate, but that runs the risk of alienating environmentalists. Improving public transport is valid but that's a long term issue, so his room for manoeuvre is pretty limited

Gerard Lyons, chief economist, Standard Chartered Bank

Food

What's the problem?Food prices are rising at their fastest rate in 16 years - up 6.6 per cent in the year to April according to government data - as emerging economies such as China move to more westernised diets, putting pressure on global wheat and dairy supplies

What can Brown do about it?Like them or loathe them, supermarkets have been behind the downward pressure on food prices over the past decade. But there is little they, or Brown, can do about the global problem of food inflation. Brown can't ask the big grocers to work together, as that would be price-fixing, but he could haul them over the coals if it looked like they were taking advantage of the situation. The underlying solution answer is simple but slow - get farmers to grow more food

What the expert saysFood price inflation has been driven by the global commodity price boom - it is outside of what a domestic government can be expected to control. We are seeing these pressures across the globe.

The government could help by lowering taxation and ensuring we have a competitive retail sector

Charles Davis, economist at the Centre for Economics and Business Research